News

Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk Studios

Sony has also confirmed the closure of German-Finnish studio Neon Koi.

October 29, 2024 11:03 AM

Sony has made the decision to shut down Firewalk Studios, the developer behind Concord. The company will also close Neon Koi, which it acquired in 2022.

Hermen Hulst, the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, confirmed the closure of Firewalk Studios in an internal email that was published online.

Concord, the first game developed by Firewalk Studios, was released and subsequently taken offline in less than two weeks this past summer. At the time, the studio said that it was considering ways to bring Concord back. Now, Sony has decided to “permanently sunset” the game.

Neon Koi was founded in 2020 and acquired by Sony in 2022. The studio was working on a live-service game.

Despite today’s news, Hulst remains steadfast in the belief that Sony Interactive Entertainment is becoming a “resilient and capable organization.”

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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October 29, 2024 11:03 AM

Donovan Erskine posted a new article, Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk Studios
- ErneX
  
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  October 29, 2024 11:03 AM
  
  damn, just brutal
- baron calamity
  
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  October 29, 2024 11:07 AM
  
  They are just trashing the whole thing. Thats incredible.
- calusari
  
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  October 29, 2024 11:26 AM
  
  Bungie next on the chopping block?
- CyCo_PL
  
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  October 29, 2024 11:30 AM
  
  Sony should have known that this game was going to fail miserably just based off the reactions to the cinematic/gameplay trailer reveals back in June. Check the Youtube comments from the time of the reveal. F2P would not have saved this game.
- AxeMan808
  
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  October 29, 2024 1:26 PM
  
  I could've set $200 million on fire. Man it's a shame how that $170 million went up in smoke like that.
  Man we lost all $135 million of that investment.
- enyakk
  
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  October 29, 2024 1:36 PM
  
  That game probably didn't cut the muster, but I never understood how a good team with a non-performing game is looked at as non-salvageable. It takes so much invest to get a new team up and running.
  - Code RedBeard
    
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    October 29, 2024 2:30 PM
    
    Perhaps the studio is so broken that tearing it down is the best option. It's unclear if the staff are all being laid off, or whether they might be transferred to some other subsidiaries.
  - Conan
    
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    October 29, 2024 9:39 PM
    
    What about their management would make you think they know what they're doing?
- grifter
  
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  October 29, 2024 2:35 PM
  
  it's especially fucked up because from the people that actually played the game, it was apparently really fun. it just never caught on.
- Code RedBeard
  
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  October 29, 2024 7:49 PM
  
  I'm very curious to find out how this project failed so spectacularly and cost so much money. Looking forward to an eventual expose or post-mortem.
- theWhite
  
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  October 29, 2024 9:28 PM
  
  This will go down as an example of what happens when you chase the trends rather than setting them. You have a very short window to capitalize on a new thing, and game dev does not lend itself well to this. The last one that I can think of is Apex Legends, I have a feeling they were trying to copy OverWatch when pubg happened and they were able to Pivot fast enough to capitalize on the Battle royale genre